AIBU to think SAHMs shouldn't put this nonsense on a CV/job application

[windygallows]

In the last year I've recruited for numerous part-time jobs, receiving applications from many women who took time out to be with family and are now returning to work.

Many of the applicants have been straightforward and simply noted on their CV that they have been SAHM - simple.

But increasingly applicants, perhaps based on some guidance from career counsellors or MN, are finding more creative ways to describe their absence from the workforce.

One, we'll call her Mrs Jones, wrote that for 10 years she was employed by the 'Jones family' and that her work involved 'organizing international travel for her family.' Because organizing a holiday is similar to the tasks led by senior executives.

Another wrote a list of every task she did at home from getting groceries to cleaning the house which, while impressive as an exhaustive list, doesn't really mean much when applying to an office-based role. Especially as it's basically a list of everything most employees have to fit in outside of work.

More galling are the claims that women make about the critical role they played - with my favourite being the one who 'Spent 7 years looking after my two children who needed and deserved my attention.'

There is huge value in the work that SAHMs do but please, please don't put this kind of waffle on your CV. You never know if your interview panel will consist of a FT working, single mom like me who finds it pretty insulting that working means her children apparently lost out on 'the attention they needed and deserved.' Urgh.

OR maybe your kid enjoys things like eating food and sleeping under a roof. It's not always a choice of "well I just enjoy working and sending them to daycare/leaving them". Sometimes you have no choice esp in the US with no maternity leave. I happen to like working and I have to work anyways but it kills me thinking of leaving my baby , it's an emotional catch 22.

Slight side point but I would argue that caring for very challenging children 24/7 forced me to develop a patience beyond the average wohm*. It's a very different emotional challenge to never or rarely do something different than being mum.

I went back to work ft after my first for a 11/2years. I know that challenges patience in many ways, but didn't push me to the extremes that being a full-time carer did. Now my children all have multiple developmental disabilities and hidden physical disabilities but none of that was diagnosed when they were young.

I understand why sahp is some challenging for some because I loved my work. I didn't find I lost my identity as some worry about when parenting full time but it did force me to learn alot more about myself and develop a strength I didn't previously have. Having to maintain my (mild) temper with 3 children with challenging behaviour without ever having that 'change is good as a rest' release of pressure that I found work (also very very challenging) was personally redefining for me. All of which is applicable to areas of work, which where possible I have kept up on a very part time basis if it didn't lose too much risk to my DC.

I can't say if this is unique experience to me, or to carers of children with similar disabilities or to carers with of disabled children in general or if some of it relates to samhs in some circumstances also. Keeping in mind some of those samhs will later discover their DC have disabilities like I did. But I think it's possible that for some the experience of sahp does push them to develop different skills in a way wohp does. Just as wohp may for others force them to develop more in other ways.

*I appreciate this isn't exactly compatible or possible to measure and will ofcourse depend on women's emotional skills prior to motherhood, but generally speaking I do think my experience has taught me greater patience, perhaps awareness/regulation of my emotions (and my DC's) and resilience than the average wohm. I wouldn't phrase it like that on a CV but I would feel confident about playing to patience as being one of my strengths in part because of being a full-time carer, and have done so successfully in interviews before.

That's an excellent point. The whole issue about working mothers is a new one. For most of history, for most people, mothers had to undertake productive activity other than childcare. And this is still the case throughout most of the world. For this reason, among others, I find it difficult to take those who claim they felt they had to stay at home for their children's welfare altogether seriously - absent exceptional circs such as disability or illness of course.

Many just don't want to work, they enjoy being at home, they don't see it as the most valuable use of their time to be at home, more they'd rather not work if they can help it, having kids are a good excuse and they'd rather never go back.

Yup, hit the nail on the head there.
Certainly was the case for me.
Didn't have to get up till lunchtime, stay in PJs all day watching crap TV, chuck a couple of Pot Noodles at the kids come dinner time.

You have us sussed.

Bluntness

You can be both of those things as well.
I'd rather not have gone back to work and didn't, I hoped never to set foot in a work place again as cringeworthy as it sounds I had all I needed without a job/career. Why work if you don't have to is my view, which I know differs from many other peoples.
However, both me and dh made sacrifices for our family and even though we're not rolling in it and now in our 50's there's no regrets.

Just pointing out how even one example such as yours can still be broken down to show how complex our different views and choices of lifestyle are different from each other.

Yes karlos that was my experience also. We had planned for the cost of a second child that turned out to be a triplet pregnancy (although one was MC fairly early on). A nanny would have worked but by then our 1st born showed such extreme challenging behaviour that it would have required extra expense of specialist nanny and ultimately would have let down my most vulnerable child who needed a parent at home ft.

'For most of history, for most people, mothers had to undertake productive activity other than childcare.'

Well yes, but generally their children worked alongside of them in dangerous conditions, and didn't get to arse around watching Peppa pig, learning algebra or how to program a computer.

I completely believe that all sweeping generalisations are horseshit

all of them Yorick, or only the ones you don't agree with?

Some did and some didn't, Sylvia, but the point is that if mothers working per se was bad for children, I think we'd have seen the evidence for that by now.
This "my kids will suffer if I work" stuff is a very recent invention and a by product of choice and prosperity. Those are good things of course, but they do seem to cause us to invent problems where there aren't any. Work or don't work as you choose, but don't kid yourself that the latter choice is somehow better for them. On the contrary, having more money in the family can often produce much more significant benefit. In my case, I could never have afforded ds's ABA programme if I hadn't worked. God knows where he'd have been without it.

Gilly i agree, it is complex and often sacrifices.

For the pp, I wasn't saying this was the case for all mums, or that they weren't busy, I simoly said some men and women would rather not work given the opportunity and will use children as an opportunity to stop and hope never to go back,

Of course some say think are providing a valuable service for their family, sacrificing and, as posted on here , benefiting society with their kids, others have to give up for financial reasons. I was responding to the poster who said people only do it as they see it as most valuable, it's not, for some its preferred for many many other reasons.

It is complex, the same as we have women who are housewives with no kids, many of these women just don't want to work. They also don't particularly want to look after the house either and have cleaners, ironing service and gardeners. Nothing wrong with it when uou are open about it, as said the issue comes in when uou know you just don't want to work but play it as some big sacrifice for the greater good of society rather than just say " I'd really rather not work ever, thanks very much"

Pretty much all of them, ssd, including yours. Hence 'all'.

Bluntness- maybe some women work because they can't stand looking after their kids.

Well, it's always going to be true that "some" people will do largely any action you care to name.

'This "my kids will suffer if I work" stuff is a very recent invention and a by product of choice and prosperity.'

It has nothing to do with recent prosperity. UNICEF have looked at the issues around women working and children's wellbeing in some of the poorest countries in the world.

There clearly are many children in the UK who would suffer if their mothers worked, because many families experience a number of crises which cannot be or are not being adequately supported by outside agencies.

This doesn't apply to me. So I consider myself lucky. I'm aware not everyone is.

...that sounds like a sweeping generalisation to me, Yorick

I am so glad you picked up on it. I was getting very frustrated that nobody seemed to get the joke.

But yes, I do think your generalisation was horseshit, and I do think generalisations in general are horseshit. Especially when they refer to something extremely personal. This should not bother you if it is your sincerely held personal conviction. Which is a massive sweeping generalisation and therefore horseshit.

It's the 'everything in moderation, including moderation itself' approach.

I agree with that approach. These threads always go the same way.

Each to their own, I always think.

Well you can't really sincerely believe 'each to their own' if you also completely believe that all WOHPs are doing it purely to suit themselves, and that their children are all disadvantaged.

You can have whatever personal convictions you like, even if they are horseshit, but they ought to be consistent.

ssd what rot.

Being a sahp benefits the parent, whether that's emotionally or because of the cost of childcare for numerous dc. For the kids themselves it's irrelevant.

Exceptions would be the crap parents in either group or where there are complications. And most people aren't in any of those groups.

And can we stop with the crap about how hard it is to manage a home ft, it's really not.

think you have some issues with your own set up and perhaps have some guilt to deal with - maybe you have no choice but to work.

And she says SAHM are judged. Well who's done the snidey judging here? And don't worry the entire Daily Fail is behind you - I've lost count of the number of WOHM bashing articles they've printed over the years.

you've read me wrong

I believe in each to their own meaning whatever you believe, works for you

I believe what I wrote upthread, I dont expect anyone else to agree with me, but it's what I believe

if you believe the exact opposite, then that's right for you.

I know my children would have suffered greatly if I worked more than I did/do. My first dc did clearly come on leaps and bounds when I first gave up work, confirmed by the HCP involved.

How do we measure if working mothers (or perhaps both parents woh) disadvantages children? How do we know any out come is directly related to parents woh or not? The human race is clearly in a terrible state, and plenty of reports suggest children have more MH problems than ever. Do we measure educational achievements and careers success or happiness and successful relstionships. And how do we assess if this is linked to parents working, or the loss of income, or differing social pressures or educational pressure or the fact camhs is so badly underfunded ....

Childcare was terrible for me. I have awful empty lonely memories of childminders after school and various holiday clubs. But realisticly my home life was so abusive that childcare saved me from living that 24/7. So lesser evil however much it damaged me....

WOHP have been around a while! Many of us have kids who are now grown up, married, in happy relationships, with good qualifications and successful jobs.

If it were a clear divide between children of WOHP and those of SAHP, with worse outcomes for one group, we'd know about it by now. There isn't.

I guess I just don't understand why so many people don't seem to realise that in general (HORSESHIT ALERT), women do what they sincerely believe is best for their own family.

For some, that's being a SAHM. For some, that's working full time. For some, that's working part time.

There are just so many individual factors in this - mother's salary, father's salary, whether or not mother is single, whether or not father is a deadbeat or even alive, availability of childcare, quality of local childcare, mental health issues (some women become very depressed if they don't work and that's not conducive to healthy parenting), SEN, I could go on and on and on....that it is just such patently horseshit to say that any one decision is always based on only one consideration and always has only one outcome.

I mean, fgs.

Perhaps there are some children in the U.K. Who would suffer if their mothers worked, Sylvia. And there are some - like mine - who would suffer if they didn't, because the family would then be unable to afford certain assets which the children need. The point is this; there is nothing inherently superior about a family set up which had the mother at home full time. And for most people, throughout most of history, the choice hasn't even been there. We make it one because it fits with our current, transient, concerns. We are inventing issues where there aren't any.